Question

Please help i need step by step on the work to get the answer

John goes 8 steps north, 3 steps east, 6 steps south, 6 steps west and 2 steps south.

What is John's displacement from his starting point?

Answer 1

I apologise if this is confusing, if it doesn’t make sense just comment and I’ll try to explain it better. :)

Let’s seperate the four directions into two categories: north + south, and east + west.

John’s movements in regards to a north/south direction over the course of the entire placement:
8 north, 8 south (6 + 2 steps = 8 steps south)

In total, John moved both north and south 8 times each.
8 - 8 = 0, therefore canceling out any north/south movement. At this stage, John has not moved from his starting position.


John’s movement in regards to east/west:
6 west, 3 east.

Since he has not moved an equal amount of steps west and east means he HAS moved from his starting point.

In order to find John’s displacement, we must take his east steps from his west steps.
6 - 3 = 3

This means John’s displacement from his starting point is 3 steps west.